This quick survey, from the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, is your chance to speak up about biking conditions getting to the Princeton Junction train station (and other transit stops you use):

Do you use your bike to get to a transit station? Would you be more likely to bike to the transit station you use if it was more easily accessible for bicyclists or had better bike parking? DVRPC wants your input!

DVRPC, the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, SEPTA, NJ Transit, PATCO, and Open Plans are collaborating to determine where investments in bicycle accessibility are most needed. Available online, a new map-based survey allows commuters to select the transit station they use and share their ideas on how transit stations can better accommodate bicyclists.

The survey, available at biketotransit.shareabouts.org, will continue accepting public input until December 1, 2012. The results of the survey will help to shape recommendations for investment in bike improvements at our region’s transit stations. For more information on DVRPC’s Office of Bicycle and Pedestrian Planning, click here.

New Jersey Transit is allowing cyclists to get on and off at low-level train stations (think Jersey Avenue, not Princeton Junction) but is adding restrictions on bikes on any train during weekend mornings and evenings. Beginning July 1, bikes no longer will be allowed on trains going into Manhattan from 9 a.m. to noon and outbound from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on both Saturdays and Sundays. There is no distinction made between those going from, say, Princeton Junction to New Brunswick and those going all the way into Manhattan. Nor was it clear how many people are bringing bikes on trains and why the restrictions were needed.

If you agree with us that the new rules are a bad idea, you can tell New Jersey Transit in the comment section of their quarterly customer satisfaction survey (the latest survey is available through June 28), their online feedback form OR you can speak with leaders directly TODAY (June 20) between 4:30p.m. and 6:30 p.m. at the Seventh Avenue Concourse at Penn Station.

The WWBPA is partnering with New Jersey Transit, West Windsor Township, West Windsor Parking Authority, West Windsor BikeFest and the Greater Mercer Transportation Management Association to add bike lockers to the Princeton Junction train station.

The lockers, which were unused at the Maplewood train station, were recently disassembled and brought to storage by township employees, and will be reassembled when the concrete pad is poured on the New York-bound side of the tracks at Princeton Junction station.

Please join us in encouraging New Jersey Transit to allow bikes to board from all train stations, even those with low platforms, during off-peak hours. This policy, in place since 1998, was recently revised to ban boarding from low platform stations. You can send a quick online letter by clicking here.

NJ Transit is now restricting bicycle access to all of its stations that do not have a high-level platform, including the key Hoboken Terminal. That ends up putting nearly half of NJ Transit’s 163 commuter rail train stations out of reach for cyclists looking to take their bikes (thankfully not the Princeton Junction station). This new policy also does not make a distinction between full-sized, standard-frame bicycles and folding bikes.

While other transit agencies are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to greatly expand bicycle access to their trains, New Jersey Transit has quietly changed its policy regarding bicycles on trains that will severely limit those wishing to take their bicycles with them on their next trip, our friends at WalkBikeJersey report.

NJ Transit is now restricting bicycle access to all of its stations that do not have a high-level platform, including the key Hoboken Terminal. That ends up putting nearly half of NJ Transit’s 163 commuter rail train stations out of reach for cyclists looking to take their bikes. This new policy also does not make a distinction between full-sized, standard-frame bicycles and folding bikes. Read the full report here.